What is the point of Tatler? Even the editor, Geordie Greig, keeps asking himself this. He says he picked up the habit from his former boss, Andrew Neil, who applied the question to everything the Sunday Times published.

Greig was poached by Tatler owner Condé Nast from the Sunday Times to answer that question. The company, one of the largest private media groups, felt Tatler had lost its way. That was three years ago.

In Greig, then the Sunday Times media editor, Condé Nast found the harder, intellectual edge it wanted. (Publisher Nicholas Coleridge did not have to look far, either: Greig lives a few doors along on the same Kensington street.) In Tatler, Greig found quintuple-barrelled Euroaristos, the highest proportion of ABC1s of any glossy and an entrenched brand that has survived since 1707.

A recent issue featured a photograph of Lucian Freud breakfasting in an East End caff with Frank Auerbach, the highbrow ballast to pictures such as the shot of India Hicks revealing one breast. Both typify Greig's approach.

Tatler was always about posh totty, male and female. Greig's contribution has been to add a steady-ish stream of top names from literature and the arts and interviews with the likes of Prince Andrew and rock royalty Jerry Hall.

'You've got to be very strong about what you are,' says Greig. 'We're not a fashion magazine, but fashion is an incredibly important part of us. We're not Vanity Fair. We are an English society magazine reflecting the the follies, the fun, the foolishness, the fripperies, the general fanfare of life in Britain today. By featuring the people who entertain, the people who make things, the people who create, the people who write, we are mak ing that mélange of entertainment.' He is serious about Tatler's humour. 'It's fast, it's fun, it's literate. It's got a sense of humour, which is the whole point of it.'

Greig's mix has stabilised circulation at 82,000. He says the 85,000 figure trumpeted three years ago was boosted by bulks and claims readership has risen to 240,000. More men read it now, and Tatler is holding its overall position in an eroded market well. Significantly for advertisers, subscriptions are up by 25 per cent, thanks partly to extensive marketing. November's issue will be bigger than last year's, because of advertising growth.

The magazine is back in profit. The right people know what it is and Tatler punches above its weight in terms of popular currency.

Greig takes delight in people telling him how different Tatler is now. 'The pollster in 10 Downing Street, Philip Gould, sent me note saying "Gosh, you have made the magazine so wonderfully different." I mean, you know, to get the heart of New Labour saying that. I was in David Hockney's studio and there was a Tatler on his table.' Hockney - 'a good friend' - is drawing Greig.

There is no question about Greig's journalistic pedigree or that of his contacts book. He trained on what was then the South East London Mercury in Deptford, having lodged with a lorry driver while he amassed the basic tools of his trade. He worked nights at the Daily Mail, which plucked him out for star dom and soon sent him to cover the American beat. Not that he tells you about this himself.

As an Old Etonian, Oxford graduate and son of a wealthy family with royal connections, he could have taken the route of many Condé Nast employees: posh school, university and straight on to Vogue House to work your way up.

The staff and contributors include a Chamberlain, a Parker-Bowles, a Balfour and a Litchfield. Any relation? Of course. Tara Palmer-Tomkinson is also a regular. The same characters feature in each issue of this upper-class soap.

A girl called Tiffany brings coffee and a message from the publisher.Working where the air is sweet with expensive fragrance and conversation is female-dominated makes a change from Wapping. Does the staff's good breeding impact on the magazine's flavour? He prefers to talk about their passion and tendency to push him to work ever-harder. 'The key is to remain a modern magazine. We're about what people are talking about, listening to, reading. It's all in the mix, like the best parties. All the best people are there.'

But with the old order if not dead, then shrinking, is it relevant? 'We're a much more democratic, informal society without an overabundance of protocol,' Greig says. 'We're an age where, when people talk about clubs, they mean nightclubs. We have the most urban readership of any glossy. We are aiming for the educated, modern sophisticated reader, and they are ever-growing.'

But Greig says he would never consider ditching Bystander, its pictorial high-society party round-up. 'Many of our readers might turn to the back pages first. I mean it's absolutely crucial. You may as well ask Hello! to get rid of the people it features.'

For whatever Greig says about a broader society, his holy grail is a photo shoot of Prince William. And given a choice between Posh or Sophie Dahl on the cover, he has no hesitation. 'For us, Sophie Dahl. I think Sophie is everything Tatler should be. She's beautiful, she's sexy, she's intelligent, she's witty, she's well-connected.' He is, incidentally, in negotiations to secure her as a cover girl for a second time round.

Under Greig Tatler has reclaimed its sense of itself as a luxury item for the elite. No harm in that, but it is unlikely to be able to grow a great deal with this stance.

Greig was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but he did slog it out in Deptford and he lost two stone after his arrival at Tatler from the stress of hard work. 'In the end it's me who falls,' he says. 'Or hopefully doesn't.'